United States Department of the Interior 

U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

333 W. Nye Lane, Room 203

Carson City, NV 89706
775 887-7613
July 1, 2002

MEMORANDUM
To: Unkown Hydrologist, Any District, WRD
From: Keith J. Halford, Ground-Water Specialist, Nevada District, WRD
Subject: PUBLICATIONS—Colleague review of WRI “Thickness of the Chicot aquifer
system surficial confining unit and location of shallow sands”
Thank you for the opportunity to review your report. A comprehensive map of
the thickness and sand fraction of the confining unit that overlies the Chicot aquifer
would be useful for estimating potential leakage rates and aquifer vulnerability. Some
quantification of estimation error and uncertainty in the published map is equally
important for assessing aquifer vulnerability. The current report does not do enough to
produce or document a useful product. Many statements from this report expose a lack
of understanding about geostatistics in general and kriging in particular.
Estimation locations can be anywhere and are not governed by data sets
because kriging is a general method. Your “kriging lattices” are arbitrary constructs that
facilitate the creation of an estimated surface. The user should be able to specify 10-ft
spacing, 10-mi spacing, or any other estimation locations. These locations should
reflect the needs of the user, not the default settings in a bit of software.
Interpolation with kriging is built on a model of spatial variability of Z, which is
called a variogram. Estimates of Z and the associated error at an unsampled location
are influenced strongly by the range, nugget, and sill of the assumed theoretical
variogram. Estimates of error usually are reported in squared-units of Z, not as
valueless contours of “high relative error.” Interpretation of error estimates also is
guided by the estimated variogram. Applied Geostatistics by Isaaks and Srivastava
(1989) is a very readable text that describes the application of kriging and qualifies the
limitations.
ISAAKS, E.H., and SRIVASTAVA, R.H. (1989) Applied Geostatistics. New York, Oxford University
Press, p. 561.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195050134/ref=ase_infomine/002-8425396-0577669

General Comments
The underlying purpose of this report needs to be stated clearly because the
purpose guides data collection, analysis, and final products. The introductory
discussion suggests that assessment of aquifer vulnerability is the motivation for this
study. This is my guess, but I don’t know.

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 The current report is not the best product for your cooperator. A collection of
a dozen independent maps is not very useful and is the wrong thing to deliver. The
cooperator probably would like point estimates of confining unit thickness and sand
content so that the susceptibility of the Chicot aquifer near new wells can be assessed
quickly. Estimates of error from kriging or measurements from nearest wells also
should be accessible so estimates can be qualified. For example, a 50-ft thickness
estimate that has an associated error of ±5 ft does not need as much scrutiny as the
same estimate with an associated error of ±50 ft.
Confining unit thickness and sand content coverages that span the study area
and that can be queried should be the primary product from this project. Estimates at
points that are coincident with points from a DEM of the study area might be useful.
The projection, reference location, density, and areal extent of an arbitrary mesh of
estimation location should be reported but the mesh should not be shown. The revised
report should serve as documentation of the primary product.
The published report should be brief with a single map of thickness that is
printed on a plate. I would suggest presenting the thickness map as a shaded area
with 4 to 5 discrete intervals as done in figure 6. The smallest interval should be close
to your nugget value so a single range describes the majority of the area where the
confining unit can be absent. Any thickness in excess of 200 – 250 ft should be lumped
as a single class because distinguishing between a thickness of 200 ft and one of 400
ft is not important. Thickness of confining unit and percentage of sand should be
posted so the inherent error in your map is obvious at a glance (fig. 1KJH). The limit of
the shaded area shows where data is insufficient to estimate a thickness and a
separate map of error estimates is not needed.

Upper value is CU thickness in feet

Lower value is percentage of sand

Figure 1KJH.—Sample of features to include in revised map of the confining unit.

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 The confining unit needs to be defined clearly so the reader knows what is
being mapped. Sample geophysical and drillers’ logs need to be presented with
annotation that shows your picks for the top and bottom of the confining unit. Tell us if
the upper contact is land surface and describe what defines the top of the Chicot
aquifer. The reader needs this information to evaluate the ambiguity of these contacts.
A quantitative comparison between picks of the top-of-Chicot-aquifer from
drillers logs and geophysical logs needs to be presented. A scatter plot of paired
estimates of thickness at a site from drillers’ logs and geophysical logs would show
typical differences and biases between the two observations. This comparison will help
the reader determine if the 401 high-quality geophysical estimates have been
“leveraged” or muddied by the 1,673 drillers’ logs.
Estimation of local error (the nugget in geostatistical parlance) is an unstated
need and is one of the more useful results from a kriging exercise. Kriging is an exact
interpolator but only if an estimate is made at a sample location. A kriged estimate at a
location that is slightly removed (~1 ft) from a sample typically will differ by the nugget.
The nugget in a noisy example is about 25 ft, which makes sense when adjacent points
differ by 10 to 50 ft (fig. 2KJH). Posted thickness measurements reinforce that the
25-ft nugget is a good error range to associate with the estimated thickness surface.

Figure 2KJH.--Discrepancies between estimated thickness and measured values from

the Orlando example.

The intent of mapping the thickness and extents of shallow sands needs to be
clarified. Depth to the first productive sand would be the desired map for water
resources development. Estimates of total sand content would be of greatest interest if
the vulnerability of the Chicot aquifer were being assessed. Sand content might be
correlated with another property such as confining unit thickness that would allow you
to estimate sand content throughout the study area. Screened intervals from wells that
do not penetrate the confining unit can be incorporated as inequalities (fig. 3KJH).

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 Full E-Log Shallow Well
Sand = 30% Sand > 15%

CHICOT AQUIFER

Figure 3KJH.--Comparison of sand content estimates from geophysical logs and

shallow wells.

Universal kriging can be hazardous tool and resulting estimates need to be

carefully checked. While estimates of Z will not change significantly where
interpolating from surrounding points, the estimated trend might be ridiculous. Perhaps
a planar trend exists across Evangeline Parish, but the same cannot be said about
Calcasieu Parish or the study area as a whole (fig. 6). Explain the following if universal
kriging is retained.
 Describe how many trend terms were estimated. For example, a planar surface adds
two additional terms to ordinary kriging.

 Describe the estimated trend. Was the trend consistent with your expectations or did
it vary markedly from point to point where estimated?

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A Kriging Application
I applied kriging to a similar data set that I had for the intermediate confining
unit around Orlando, Florida. This example should show the utility of a variogram for
qualifying thickness estimates. Anisotropic variation in thickness data was not
considered but the resulting thickness map suggests more correlation exists along a
NW-SE axis (XYZ--Variograms+Kriging.xls). Further description of the intermediate
confining unit and the geohydrologic setting can be found in
Spechler, R.M. and K.J. Halford 2001, Hydrogeology, water quality, and simulated effects of
groundwater withdrawals from the Floridan Aquifer System, Seminole County and vicinity,
Florida, USGS WRI 01-4182

The most obvious feature of the isotropic variogram is that a lot of uncertainty
is associated with the point data (fig. 4KJH). A nugget of ~600 ft 2 suggests that
thickness is expected to differ by about 25 ft between wells that only are a few hundred
feet apart. A clear relation between distance and weighting ceases to exist for
estimating thickness at locations that are more than 200,000 ft from any data point.

3500

3000
Spherical
2500
GAMMA, in Z2

g, Z2
2000

1500 MODEL: Spherical

1000 NUGGET: 632
SILL: 2022
500 RANGE: 290,000
0
0 100000 200000 300000 400000 500000 600000
DISTANCE BETW EEN PAIRS

Figure 4KJH.—Empirical and theoretical variogram for the thickness of the

intermediate confining unit from the Orlando example.

Thickness surfaces from kriging and inverse-distance weighting depict the

same general features and are identical within the context of the variability of the data
(fig. 5KJH). The kriged surface might be more aesthetically pleasing to some than the
inverse-distance weighted surface because it is smoother and less speckled. These
differences are not significant because the two surfaces are within 25 ft for more than
99.95 percent of the estimated area.

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Figure 5KJH.—Estimated thickness of the intermediate confining unit by inverse-

distance weighting and kriging from the Orlando example.

The effect of nugget, sill, range, and variogram model on estimation of Z can
be investigated in the file KRIG_Max-40_XYZsamples.xls. Kriging is performed on a
small subset of the Orlando data set. Measured thickness and kriging weights are
posted along with a target location. Changing the target location will cause the weights
and resulting estimate of Z to change.

GET CROSS

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with 2 clicks (not a double-
click).

SHIFT

The target position can be

shifted along the X-axis or
Y-axis.